The clean laboratory is used to prepare samples with pico- to nano-molar levels of trace metals for concentration and isotopic composition analyses. Laboratory room surfaces are made of non-corrosive, acid resistant, metal free plastic materials (including floors, cabinets, and benches). It has a monitored positive pressure air supply with HEPA filtration, and has its own clean water supply. The laboratory is composed of several separated working spaces with different degrees of contamination-control, which serve different purposes. Several analytical instruments, located in a next-door analytical laboratory, are used for the analysis of samples that were prepared in the clean laboratory.
Analytical equipment:
(1) Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS; Agilent 7500cx) for analysis of trace metals.
(2) Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometer (ICP-OES; Analytic Jena PlasmaQuant PQ9000 Elite) for analysis of major and minor elements.
(3) Direct mercury analyzer for solid, liquid and gas samples (Milestone DMA-80).
(4) Multi Collector Inductively Coupled Plasma Spectrometer (MC-ICP-MS; Neptune, Thermo – shared w/ A. Amrani) for the analysis of isotopic ratios (Sr, Pb, Nd, U, Fe, Cu, Mo).
(5) X-Ray Fluorescence spectrometer (XRF; Bruker Tracer III–V handheld XRF) equipped with a SiPIN Detector and excitation source of X-ray-tube Rh target live time count.
(6) Micro-balance (Mettler Toledo MX5) an ultra-sensitive analytical balance (±1\(\mu_g\)).
(7) Auto-siever (GA-6 Gilsonic) for size separation equipped with 10 \(\mu_m\), 20 \(\mu_m\), 63 \(\mu_m\), 75 \(\mu_m\), 125 \(\mu_m\), 250 \(\mu_m\) sieves.
